Urban Sketching: Storytelling and How to Start a Sketch

1. Intro: Hey there, kill here. Welcome to another urban sketching course. And in this course, I'm going to cover the storytelling aspect of creating a sketch, how you can make your sketches more meaningful. And I'm going to give you some tips and techniques on how you can start a sketch so as to minimize the number of mistakes that you may make later on. This is L Road, which is part of Little India, and it's a pretty busy and popular neighborhood here in Singapore. Starting your sketch properly is important, and placing down the first few lines accurately on paper is important. Hopefully, after this course, you can remember the techniques and utilize some of them in your sketches. Now, this course is actually part of several urban sketching courses that I have made over the years. If you find this course, do check out the other courses that I have. All reference photos are provided in this course and you can use them for your practice purposes. But I highly recommend you go out on location and sketch. Instead, sketching on location, in my opinion, is the best and fastest way to improve your sketching techniques and improve your awareness. If you have created any sketches, either using the reference photos or on location, feel free to share them with me and I can give you some critics on how you can improve your sketches. All right, before we start the first lesson, I have a favor to ask of you. If you find this course useful, do leave this course aview so that others can know whether this course is any good. All right, let's go with the first lesson. Let's talk about storytelling. 2. What is Storytelling: Welcome back. Storytelling for urban sketching is not an easy subject to teach because there isn't any structure or system storytelling for urban sketching is not the same as storytelling for graphic novels, shows, or movies. Because there is no start middle. And n what I can say is when it comes to sketching and you want to have a story to go with that sketch, there are certain things that you can control and things that you cannot control. For example, things that you can control would be your ideas, your composition, and your subject matter. So you can choose what you want to show, you can choose what you want to sketch. Let me give you an example. Let's take a look at this park that I'm at now. So it's deserted in the morning because it's really hot. So let's imagine for a second that this park is actually crowded with people who are exercising during the evening time. And you are here to sketch. So you can make a choice to sketch people who are exercising in the park. Or you can sketch the scenery for the park, which is actually quite beautiful. Or you can choose to sketch both the scenery and people who are exercising. Or you can choose to create a series of sketches just to show what's happening around the park. You can choose what to include and what not to include in your sketch. Sometimes what you chose not to include can be as important as the things that you choose to include in your sketch. Determine the story. First, think about what you want to tell the person who's looking at your sketch and draw what you want to show. Draw the story that you want to tell. Now I want to show you some sketches from this sketch book and talk about the story behind them. Most of the sketches in the sketch book were drawn on location, but not part. For example, this was actually drawn with the help of reference image, this was drawn from Google Earth. There's no story behind this sketch, as I was just drawing or sketching for fun, this was drawn on location. So I was riding my bicycle past the pop up market and it was quite busy, So I decided to sketch this because this looked very interesting to me. This is unlike the other vegetable stores from the building, because this is a pop up market. And I remember as I was sketching, the sky was getting quite dark because it was going to rain very soon and the wind was really strong and I did not remember to bring my clips to clip the sketch book. The pages were just flapping around while I was sketching. So it's not that easy to sketch and paint with moving paper. That's what I remembered from this sketch. This was also sketched from a reference photo, and there is no story behind this. I was actually at this restaurant on the second floor to have dinner with my wife, and it was dinner. So I did not want to sketch during dinner. So I took a photo and sketch this at home. Now, this sketch would be more memorable if I had actually sketched this dinner while I was waiting for my food. This was sketched on location, but nothing interesting happened that day. I remember sketching at a street nearby, and someone worker actually came along and gave me a cold can of Coca Cola because the boss for the shop said, I was sweating too profusely. This was sketched while I was waiting for the uncle to repair my bicycle. And this guy has been repairing bicycles for a very long time in this neighborhood. All the tools and repair equipment in his shop looked really. Oh, this sketch took me 2 hours to draw and paint. The more time you spend looking and sketching, the more you will be able to observe and get a sense of the place. There was a clinic beside the shop. There is this chair hanging on the pillar. There are new bicycles for sales, and for some reason this guy actually sells old tires, or maybe the old tires are going to be sent for recycling. And his wife manages the other shop, which is also a bicycle shop that sells accessories by the side. After I completed the sketch, I showed my sketch to, to the couple. It was really fun to sketch this. I remember sketching this on a day when it was cloudy and it was Grizzly, so I had to find a dry spot to sketch this scene. While I was sketching, a van, came along and parked right in front of me to unload some wine bottles. After the van left, one of my friends, who is also an urban sketcher, just walked down the street and spotted me and we started chatting. So that's the story for this sketch. For this sketch, I read a news article saying that there will be a tank on display in front of the museum. So that's why I went down to sketch this as well as make a video of my sketching process. I remember there were many school children in front of the tank because it was actually a school excursion. So, one of the teachers came up to me to tell me not to record the school children due to privacy reasons. So I said okay. So I waited for the children to leave and then sketch this. So when I posted the video online, I received a lot of negative feedback. Because you can see the date here is 21st of February 2022. This date is very close to the date when Russia invaded Ukraine. So when I posted the video, many people said I was insensitive to post a sketch of a tank during the time when Russia invaded Ukraine. I posted it because I didn't really follow world news. So this sketch has nothing to do with the war that's happening. It's just that I did not follow Wl new. So I didn't know that Russia has invaded Ukraine. These three sketches were drawn on location. The story is I was trying to go back to this place where there's a concrete slab on the ground where I had left my watercolor box. And I forgot to pack that box back in my bag. So the next day I had took the train at the train station to rush down back to the same place to find that the box is gone. Yeah, so that's the train station and this is the interior of the train. And this was not easy to sketch because I was holding my sketchbook and standing while sketching. And since I'm standing and sketching, I am not able to color this and this. So while I did not find my watercolor box, I did not want my trip to be wasted. So I sketched and painted around the area, and this was the sketch made that day. Here's another sketch book that I want to show you. So these are some of the stickers that I received from my friends while sketching. Once a month I will join my friends to sketch some place in Singapore. So some of these sketches were drawn during those gatherings or outings. Okay, so this was sketched at Changi Airport terminal four while waiting for my plane. So I was going to Hong Kong to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Urban Sketchers Hong Kong Group. This was sketch at the hotel. So when you're going on a trip, you can bring along your sketchbook and document your trip. The story will be of your trip. So these are some of the sketches that I made while I was in Hong Kong for a few days. That's the urban sketches Hong Kong stamp for this sketch. I was sketching with my friends and it's really fun. We visited all these places and sketched together. We had really good memories because when you're sketching with friends, it's always fun. And there is always a lot to talk about. There's a lot of catching up. The story is the experience. This is Chencha, an island of Hong Kong. There are many fishing boats. Too many for me to draw. This is one of the fishing boats there. This was not easy to draw because it's not easy to find a shaded spot. It was so hot and sunny and there weren't many sheltered areas. When it comes to the technicality of drawing this, yes, I can sketch this, but I need to find a comfortable spot to be able to sketch this. This was grown at a cafe, and this was grown at a cafe as well. This was grown during another outing, urban sketching, outing with my friends. This building at Po's Hill Terrace will be torn down for redevelopment. Me and my friends were there to sketch and create some memories for this building, which will be gone in a few years time. And here is a sketch that I will create a demo for later. Now, the story for this sketch is not obvious because it's just a straight sketch. But I was actually sketching with my friends, catching up with my friends, and it was really fun talking, chatting, and painting, sketching together. However, when you look at the sketch, you don't really see that story because that is my story. If you look at this series of sketches, the one made at Changi Airport terminal four, the sketch from the hotel, and the sketches of all the different places in Hong Kong. You will know that the story is one of traveling. But sometimes when you look at the sketches like this, the story is not very apparent. It's not obvious. But for the person who is making the sketch for you, who is making that sketch for me, who is sketching movies, you will know the story and the experience of that day from that day when you, when you make that sketch. Sometimes the story may not be obvious for another person looking at your sketch. But what's more important is you will remember the experience of creating that sketch that in my opinion is very meaningful and it really helps to make you remember the place, the scene, the experience more vividly. When you're sketching with the help of reference image or photo, you will not get the experience compared to when you're sketching on location because you're not there on location. When you're on location, many things can happen, the weather can change, or you may get kicked off a certain property, you may be told to leave. Or you may be too hungry to continue to sketch, and you have to leave somewhere to eat first before coming back to sketch. Many things can happen and all of that will contribute to the story behind the sketch that you make. That's the difference between sketching from a reference photo versus sketching from location or urban sketching. In the next lesson, we will take a walk around a neighborhood and I will talk about the things that I will look out for when trying to find interesting scenes to sketch. 3. The Easy Way to Tell a Story: In this lesson, I want to show you a sketch walk that I attended with my friends. We were invited to sketch in this gallery that's located on the second floor in a shopping mall. Here we have a great view of the beautiful shop houses across the street. As you can see, there are many sketches sketching the same view. What I wanted to do is not just sketch the shop houses, but also capture what is actually happening. The main story that I see here is of people sketching together, sketching the shop houses, and I want to capture this moment. If I just draw the shop houses, the story is going to be about the shop houses, but there are actually things happening outside of the page. Here we can see my friend who is actually sketching the people sketching. He has created a collage of the sketchers and also the scenes and the buildings that he has sketched that morning. So this is his way of storytelling. Just draw buildings, and the story capture is not obvious because it's just a stationary building. That's all right because you can remember why you made that sketch even though the story is not shown in the sketch. Now I'm going to show you a time lapse video of how I created this sketch. I really love this sketch because it shows a few things. It shows what the people are doing and they are sketching, what they are sketching, and also where they are. I was actually using an iPad to create this digital sketch. And I brought along an iPad instead of my usual watercolor set because I know that the space is going to be quite tight and it's going to be inconvenient to use traditional media, in this case, watercolor. Using a tablet to draw is going to be more convenient. And also, I was able to stand and sketch. With watercolor, I will have to sit down because I need to place my watercolor palette on the ground. I had to stand and sketch this scene because if I were to sit down, I will not be able to see the shop houses that my friends were drawing. So when I stood up, I could see the shop houses and I also could see my friends who were sketching the shop houses. And I can also see the gallery pieces, the artworks, the paintings that were on display by the site. So this will give me the context of where all my friends are while they were sketching. I started this sketch by drawing the shop houses first and you can see some light blue guidelines that I have already drawn before I even started the sketch just to frame the composition and just to make sure that when I'm drawing, I can draw at the right proportion because I know myself when I draw, I have a tendency to draw bigger and bigger. By placing the guidelines on the page first, it forces me to draw within the guidelines. I drew the shop houses first because they are in the background and now I'm drawing the people that are in the foreground, closer to me. And they are overlapping the shop houses. Since I'm using an iPad, I actually drew the people, my friends on a separate layer on top of the shop houses which are on the lower layer. Because later on, if I need to erase something, it's easier for me to erase certain lines. Now, when you're drawing on paper, You can draw background elements first of foreground elements. First, it really depends on personal preference. Now, if there are overlapping elements in your scene. In this case, for example, the overlapping elements are the sketches and the window frames, I would probably draw those overlapping elements first before I draw the background because these foreground elements are overlapping elements in the background. And also by drawing some foreground elements first, you can actually use them to place other objects in your scene later. On Now I'm just adding little details to complete the sketch. For the details in the background, I don't actually need to add that much details. I just need to suggest some details because when you draw smaller and smaller, you will eventually run out of space to draw all the details. That's when you can stop drawing the details. Now I'm drawing the painting, one of the paintings on display, just to provide context as to what this place Is. Generally speaking, if you can capture or show who, what, when, where, how of a particular scene, there is going to be a lot of story in your sketch. So who are in the scene? What's happening? When is this happening? Where is this happening and how is this happening. For example, if you're sketching in the market, when we how would be who are the people in the market. Where is this place a market. What are the people doing? Shopping for vegetables, how are they shopping for vegetables? They could be paying the shop owners, paying money, putting goods into plastic bags. If you're just sketching buildings, then you may not be able to show how. For buildings, you know where the buildings are. If there are people in the scene, you know who are the people in the scene, they can be pedestrians. But you don't really show what is happening or when it's happening unless you show the weather or the shadows and there is no what happening. This gesture is almost complete, not just adding colors to the scene. And also adding some shadows to show the time of day. And also, it looks like it's going to rain. There are lots of gray clouds in the sky. By the way, it was an exceedingly hot day. Being able to sketch in the comfort of an air condition environment is something that I will also remember when I look at this sketch. But that obviously is not going to that part of the story sketching in comfort is not going to be obvious to the person looking at their sketch. That story that part of the story belongs to you yourself. Now I'm just trying to add some decorative texts for the name of this art studio. When sketching, try to capture the scene as accurately as you can with line art first. If the line art doesn't look good, adding colors is not going to improve the sketch. Try and focus on drawing from observation as accurately as you can. With more experience over time, you will also learn more about yourself, whether you're someone who prefers to draw buildings or people or both and your storytelling techniques will also evolve with time. With urban sketching, I don't think you will ever stop learning because there are always new techniques to learn, places to discover and experiences to experience. Just go out and sketch and have fun. Who knows what stories you may discover and remember for life. 4. Looking for Interesting Subjects: My first day for you when it comes to schedule on location, is to take some time to walk around the neighborhood, take a look around and see what catches your attention. Right now, it's still early in the morning and some of the shops are just starting to open, so there isn't much activity yet. Now, generally speaking, when there are people in your scene, the scene is going to look more interesting. Naturally. Right now, you don't see many people on the streets. There are some people eating at the restaurant on the right side. So that can be one area that you can draw. You sketch people eating. The story can be about friends or family members catching up during a meal. The story can also be about the food that is sold in this neighborhood. Sketching people is actually pretty good practice, especially when you sketch people who are eating because they are mostly stationary. So this can be good warm up for sketches that you will draw later on, you can sketch the market and see what types of fruits, vegetables, or meat that are sold at the market. And this can give you a good idea on the type of produce that is sold in the neighborhood. It may be interesting or useful to take down the prices of the foods so that you can have some information on how much they cost, especially when compared to the same fruits in your country. When sketching people, try to sketch action poses. Try to sketch people doing something. So in this case, you can see the fruit seller placing the oranges on the table. Capturing action poses is going to make your sketches look more lively instantly. For example, sketching a person walking is more interesting compared to sketching a person just standing around. When it comes to urban sketching, drawing buildings is almost unaffordable. Now, when you're in the neighborhood, I highly recommend you sketch several scenes so that you can capture the different types of architectural style in that neighborhood. The more scenes you capture, the more information you will have of the neighborhood. Here's another food center, and we have people having breakfast here as well. Even back at this can be quite interesting to sketch. If you take a look at this building, you can see a plant growing out from the wall. This tells me this building is o, and along the street we have some very beautiful shophouses. And looking at the Chinese works that are on the balcony, I can tell straight away that these are Chinese shop houses in the little indior neighborhood. The decorations on the buildings behind me are very detailed. So if you want to sketch a scene like this, you can sketch the overall view. And on another page, you can zoom in to sketch the details just to provide more information regarding the buildings. Before you sketch a scene, I would recommend you anticipate things that can happen. This shop is actually kind of interesting because there is this green thing that is turning and there is the shop owner that is, who is eating his breakfast. But you can see this is a parking lot, so you have to anticipate cars that will park in front of you before you can complete your sketch. The timing is important as well. For example, markets are most busy in the morning because that's the time where most people will do their shopping. And during lunchtime, restaurants will be the most busy. And if the area has night markets, you may not even see those stalls until during evening time when the store owners set up their stores. So just by spending some time to walk around the neighborhood, you can get a lot of information about the area, the culture of the people, the type of food they eat, what time they come out, and other interesting little tippets of information. Before you even start sketching, this is not just an area only with shops, for retail restaurant. There are many people living in this neighborhood as well. Here's another side or back alley, and this one has many rubbish bins behind the restaurant. So this is where they throw all the rubbish. There is some wood works here. Now, I don't like woodworks where it's happening outside my home. But in this case, in this neighborhood, to sketch, and this be quite interesting to sketch because people are working, so there is action. And you can also learn how the workers repair roads. If you want to sketch a scene like this, I recommend you spend some time to observe the scene. First, find out where you can stand or sit safely, and also notice the small vehicle at the back. Now, this vehicle is moving quite fast. It's going to be challenging to sketch that you may want to sketch that vehicle when it's stationary. Sketching machinery can be quite fun and it will be good to take some notes as well on how this machine vehicle actually works. The challenging thing about sketching this is you have to anticipate the vehicles moving away. So you have to sketch them very quickly, as much as possible. Try to sketch action. Try to sketch things that are happening when you're walking around the neighborhood. Try and stay safe. Watch out for vehicles. And when you have found a place to stand or sit to sketch, look up to anticipate things that may fall onto you. For example, this may look like a shady and comfortable spot to sit and sketch. But if you look at the pavement that's just beside, you can see there has a lot of dropping. So this is definitely not the place to sit. All right. I think I've done enough walking around and now it's time for me to look for a spot, a scene to sketch. See you guys in the next lesson. 5. How to Start a Sketch: Welcome back. And just as I was about to start sketching, it started drizzling even though it's like really sunny. Yes, today I'm actually out here to sketch with my friends from Urban Sketches in Singapore. So, these are my friends who are sketching with me today. So some are seated indoors, some are seated outside. So I actually wanted to sketch on that table behind me, but I checked the opening time of this restaurant and it's going to open in half an hour's time. So I'm not going to sketch that. So when you are sketching in front of shops or businesses, I try to try not to affect the business. So this place is where I want to sketch, and from what I can see, the sun is actually coming from behind me. So this role of shop houses are actually in shape, which is not ideal for sketching if everything is in shape. And now I'm on the other side of the road. And you can see the cast shadows on the shop houses. There are on the second floor and also on the ground floor. This is where you get light and shadow and this is where you can get contrast. When sketching, always look for light and shadow. And this is the site where all the shop houses are in shape. When there is no obvious light and shadow, the contrast isn't really there. So when you're sketching was try and look for light and shadow. Before you start sketching, you have to decide on the composition you want to put on your page. You can stand or to determine your composition. In this case, I want to draw the shophouses on the left, which is why I across the street. So that I can see the details of those shophouses on the left, see that pair of legs there. That is not very safe because the legs are on the road. So when I'm sketching on the street, try and stay off the street, like don't have your legs go out of the curb. I have decided to sketch this scene and the first thing I want to do is to take some measurements first. The way to take measurements is to have a pen or pencil in hand, stretch out your arm, lock your elbows. It's very important to lock your elbows and measure something. So in this case, I want to measure the building at the back. So the top of my pencil we'll align to the roof here. And the bottom of this pencil, where my thumb is, will align to the bottom of the building. This is considered one unit, and the width of this building is half a unit. From the back of this car to the edge of this building, this is considered one unit. Now it's very important to lock your elbows. So make sure you lock your elbows. Now we are looking at one unit, half unit. This side here is also one unit. Now we are looking at one half, one. It's 2.5 units. If you are a beginner, you can always start with a pencil first. Remember what we have measured earlier? We have a half unit here, this is one unit. We have one unit here. This is where the back of the car will be. That's where the back of the car is. We have one unit here as well. This will be the street. You will have to find out where the vanishing point is pointing, the horizon. And the vanishing point on the horizon is very helpful before you sketch, so let's do that. This is my eye level and this is going to be the horizon. When you see where the diagonal lines are pointing or converging, that will be the vanishing point. From what you can see, it's actually somewhere around here. The venting point does not have to be very precise, but of course, if you can find out where exactly that vishing point is, your sketch will be more accurate for this scene. The vanishing point is actually somewhere here, and I'm going to mark that with a cross. Now if you're using pencil, you can draft out the composition first. Once you get the composition and perspective to look accurate, you can then ink and add details later on. But if you get the composition or the perspective wrong at the start, it's going to affect. Your sketch. Later on, let me show you what will happen if you get the perspective wrong at the time of your sketch. So let's say you have a wall like this, and you have drawn the wall like this. Now, the perspective of the windows must follow the perspective of the wall, because the windows are on the wall. If you draw the perspective like this, again, same thing. The perspective of the windows must follow the perspective of the wall. So if you draw the wall like this and it's wrong, the perspective for all your windows will be wrong later on. Making sure your perspective is accurate during the penciling stage will help a lot. You will want to draft in the big ships. Now, you can add as many lines or details as you want during the penciling stage. But the most important thing here really is to get, make sure you draw the correct and accurate perspective. Because if you get the perspective wrong here at the start, the perspective for everything else is going to look off later on. The more pencil lines you put on the page, the more you will have to erase later on. But sometimes I don't actually erase the lines. I will just leave the lines as they are. Now, if you want to erase the lines, just remember that once you paint watercolor over the pencil, the pencil will not erase anymore before you paint watercolor. That's when you will want to erase the lines. I have drawn this back building here and now I want to draw the shop houses on the left. Remember the vanishing point here. This is where you can draw the diagon lines to the vanishing point. I'm just going to draw it like this. Now to practice perspective drawing, try not to draw too many details. Just draw the big ships first. Because what you really want is to make sure the big ships are accurate. Make sure the big ships have accurate perspective. Now I'm joining the bottom here to the branching point here. The lines can be loose because this is still the penciling stage. It's all right. Next we can divide this into this building here into 1233 floors. We have another building here by the side. This building also has diagonal lines that go to the pension point. If you feel like your perspective is off slightly, just look at your sketch as a whole and see where it is off. All right. We have a tree here, we have a lamppost here. The lamppost is white against the tree, which is green and dark. Just take note that because later on we can use the white chip pant lamppost and we have the buildings here. We have some signs here from this side of the building as a triangle here holding up the sign. Another sign here. Right now, I'm using positioning techniques to position the signs. There is this rectangle at the top. I'm not too bothered by the pencil marks here because this is just a sketch. You can also create a little thumbnails just to test out your composition first. Before you draw up, I can see many rubbish bins here. The rubbish bins will become bigger and bigger as they are Mirror to this rubbish bin is about two times the size of this. When you're drawing, always compare what you are drawing with things that you have already drawn. I'm going to have this rubbish bin come out here. We have a car here. The lights will be here. That's the lights of the car, and this is the front of the car tires, and we have the windshield and Yup. So now we can draw the shop house on the left side. I think this is pretty much it. Now, if I want to in the sketch, I can do so. This is the very important stage during the penciling or the blocking station. Make sure the perspective looks accurate during the penciling station. Now, once you have more experience, you can draw with ink straight away. But for beginners, using pencil is going to make it overwhelming when it comes to sketch and can help you draw more accurately. Also when you make any mistakes during the penciling stage, you know that mistake, so you can avoid making the same mistake later on. Okay, so this is what I have now. There are actually many cars on the street and there are many moving vehicles. So it's kind of difficult for me to actually draw some of the vehicles. Now the vehicles are in front of the building, so you will want to draw elements that are in front first. Because we are using pencil, we can mark out the areas for the vehicles here. So remember earlier, the back of one vehicle is here. Yeah. And make sure the vehicles overlap each other as they move into the back room. And now it's time to ink the sketch. Now, the most important takeaway for this cost is to make sure your drafting lines are accurate. Make sure your perspective is accurate before you in. If the perspective is not accurate, then inking doesn't matter because the perspective is not accurate. That is the most important thing you need to take away from this co, make sure the perspective is accurate during the drafting stage. As for inking, just make sure you close up the lines. If you have made any mistakes earlier, this is where you can avoid making the same mistakes. Again, my sketch is going to be very loose. Just make sure you close the lines and your sketch will naturally look good. Now you can see many pencil lines, so maybe I will want to erase those lines later. When the ink is dry, make sure the ink is completely dry before you erase the lines, how much detail you want to add really comes down to your personal preference. Yeah. So make sure to draw the elements that are in the foreground first, elements that elements in the background. For example, the car here. Yeah. Make sure to draw the vehicles that overlap the building first. If you are not good with our drawing vehicles again, you can use pencils to block out the general shape of the vehicle first. Now your sketch can look very luesome, but still look good as long as your perspective is accurate. So you have many vehicles, I'm sketching like really fast here. So once you have the big ships, you can divide the big ships into smaller and smaller ships and just continue to add details where details are needed during the inking stage is where you can choose how accurate you want to be. If you want to be very accurate, you just have to draw slowly. Spend more time observing what you see and draw slowly. Always be comparing what you see to what you have in the paper, but spend more time looking at what's in front of you and that will make your sketch look more accurate. How much detail you want to add, again, is up to you. If you are using a big sketch book, you will have to add more details. But if you're using a small sketch book, for example, I'm using a small sketch book, I don't have to add that much details because I don't have the space to add that many details. Okay, while you're sketching, I pay attention to the height of people in the scene and add people in the scene because that's going to make the scene look just more likely. Make sure the ink is dry before you erase and now let's paint the sketch. I will not talk too much about painting because I have other courses that cover water color painting. So all I want to say is I'm using a limited color palette just to make the painting process easier. I think the most important thing when it comes to sketching on location is you must enjoy the process. And now I can use the white job pen or Posca markers to add details. This is not dry yet, so make sure to have you paint. Try completely before you use opaque medium such as white help pants acrylic paint to add details. Okay, Make sure to write the name of the roads as well. You don't always have to erase all the pencil lines, because after you apply water color, some of the pencil lines may not be obvious anymore. And also the pencil lines can also add texture or make your sketch look more interesting. So this is my completed sketch. It may be very loose, it may not be very detailed. But I like this a lot. A sketch can still look really good as long as you get the basic perspective, right. The details are just icing on top of the cake. But perspective and the composition is really important at the start of last sketch. 6. Sketching a Festive Season: In this lesson, we will hit into the market and see what story we can find. So it's really bright and hot right now, so let's just rush in. So it's good around to walk around first to check out the neighborhood. I have been here to sketch before and it's always very crowded. We are here at right to sketch the decorations. The bazaar for the end of Ramadan, which is Hari Raya, Pisa Harry Ryan is the Malay for a big day of rejoicing. And Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic year. Ramadan is the month for fasting, prayer, reflection, and community for Muslims, this is quite a big building. One half of the building has all the food stalls, and this half has all the stores selling, as you can see, clothing. So in this case, it's good not to just sketch the food stalls, but also to sketch the clothing stores. Just to give an idea on the variety of shops that are available In this, I've decided to sit at the table there to sketch this scene that is behind me, the food stalls, the ones that are open as well as closed. The few things to take into consideration when choosing a spot for sketching is choose a spot where people will not block your view. I've chosen to sit at this table instead of the table behind because it's less likely for people to sit at this table to block my view from this table. That's why I'm here. And you can see the store in front of me is actually selling some food wrapped with Panda leaves. If I'm not worn and the leaves are dark, so we have yellow boxes and the dark leaves. So that's good contrast, but it's just these two colors. But if you take a look at the store on the left side, the food items are more colorful. So you can decide which store you want to sketch. In this case, sketching here can give you a sense of activity because we are not only sketching the stores, but there's also this corridor where people are walking to. You can also sketch people that are walking out to create a sense of movement, to capture the sense of movement, to make your sketch and scene look more lively. You can also sketch people preparing food, which is always interesting. So as much as possible, try to sketch some sort of activity so that your scene can look more lively. That's my friend Andrew on the right side buying his breakfast. You can also buy the food and sketch the food. This is the pink sketch before coloring, and I have managed to capture the two stores. I have people walking, people in the background, people seated down, and store owners preparing food. So there is a lot of activity. We can also see some stores that are not open, such as this one here and this one. Now I can change it. This schedule is almost complete. I just need to wait for the paint to dry before I add the finishing touches with some opaque markers. As you can see, it's a very busy scene. This scene is quite challenging to draw, especially the structures at the top, which I did not draw it with. Think I feel like it's easier if I can just pin those structural beams with watercolor and it will be faster as well. Let's take a closer look at the sketch from left to right. That's the store on the left. Here at the top, you can see all the sites. They are to prevent the birds from resting on top. And that's the store on the right side. I have forgotten to paint the food here. Let's have a look at the wet market. Sketching in markets is probably the easiest way to create an interesting sketch because there is always so much activity happening. You can sketch what the stores are selling. So there are many things you can sketch. One tip that I have for you when it comes to sketching at the market is practice at home first because it can be quite intimidating to sketch at the market when there are so many things going on. Another tip is to just focus on a specific small area to sketch. Because if you are going to sketch like everything, again, it's going to be quite intimidating. If you are a beginner, just maybe focus on one store. Drawing moving people is very challenging. You can draw the produced that are being soaked. It is blazing hot right now. If you want to sketch in such heat, make sure you drink a lot of water because dehydration can happen. That's just a quick lesson on finding a story. In this case, sketching during a festive season. 7. Outro: I hope this course is useful. And do send me your sketches because I would love to have a look at them and give you some ideas on how you can improve. All right, see you guys in the next course. And don't forget to leave this course a review, right?